Spiritual Presumption

Romans 12:1-21
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

When I was younger, I spoke as a younger person. I had assumptions and presumptions of a younger person.  But now, I speak as one who knows I don't know.

There is a place in God where we come to the end of ourselves.  We know we no longer really know.

There were many things I "knew" and believed when I was a new christisan 30 some yearss ago.  I had read books.  I had studied.  I had grown up in the church.  I was "there".

What shocks most people as they age is how little all that they thought they knew for sure was soundly based.  That's why as a believer we must be certain of what we pronounce, the gifts we claim, the grace we carry.  Most of which I thought I had in 1977 now are no longer in operation.

Sure, I can preach, teach, prophesy, discern.  Yet... those gifts have modified. Matured.

When someone says to me, "I am very discerning" I know we are dealing with an immature gift.  It's not that they don't carry it at some level...but not at the level of true discernment...

It's a connundrum.  That which we think we have, once we assume it we no longer have it.  Look at the hundreds of people who clamor for the podium only to discover that they aren't really cut out for that.

Only true graces given by God are yours.  You don't learn discernment, there are no books.. You have it by grace or not.  A pet peave of mine is those who have read a psycology book or two and from that try to tell me about my hang ups.  WOW.  They can't even run their own lives, and now they presume to try to tell me now to run mine??

I guess gray hair has a way of clearing out the clutter.  The fake from the real.  Only with real humility do we enter into understanding our place in the Body of Christ.  Read the Romans passage again... it's about all of us.